Thursday, May 19, 2016

These are the latest additions to my group of monotypes, which is growing faster than my paintings. Something has to be done about that this summer, I'm making sure of it. As always the challenge is to come up with new ideas, very different than plein air painting because you don't have a location in front of you to aid and inspire the work. Lots of little studies are made in my sketchbook to get ideas going, a good thing since it has forced me to draw more often.

I'm not sure how long I will keep working with the sepia ink though, maybe I'll stop when I run out of the grey Rives BFK paper I've been using. I'm thinking this summer I'll moving into color...we'll just have to see what happens.

Tuesday, May 03, 2016

Spring is here, we were off to a good start with very warm temperatures a few weeks ago, and then all of the sudden things cooled off. Regardless, warm days are under way and that can only mean one thing...it's time to paint outdoor! Two weekends ago I was able to paint in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, a place that is not very familiar to me but it has been on my painting radar for a long time. I finally made it there and I think I found my new painting destination in NYC for the summer! The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the mastermind behind Central Park. Many years ago I read somewhere that this was Olmstead's favorite park he had designed, and I can see why. There is something more organic about Prospect Park, which in the end yields more surprises as you explore it. This painting is the first of my Prospect Park series, and to be quite frank I think this is one of my strongest paintings yet. I can't wait to see the work I get done by the end of summer. More to come!

About Me

"Anything under the sun is beautiful if you have the vision-it is the seeing of the thing that makes it so."
- Charles W. Hawthorne -
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"One of the functions of art is to remind us of common humanity. The artist, like the priest, can sometimes remind us that we are bound by an obligation to one another stronger and more lasting than the bonds of politics or economics."
- John Manchip White, Diego Velazquez: Painter and Courtier -
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"To defend an artist as original says little about his work except that it is in some way different from what preceded it. As such, originality itself is rarely a strong defense, for it is born more of admiration for audacity and perseverance than necessarily of understanding." - James H. Rubin, Manet's Silence and the Poetics of Bouquets -